As part of th upcoming "Yay! Optimism!" series, we'll be putting together a number of articles on Mark Giordano whose unlikely meteoric rise through the Flames depths charts these last few years is one of th best stories in the NHL. An undrafted junior from the OHL, Giordano was a training camp try-out away from becoming an accountant. Now he's a $4M+ per year NHL defender and future assistant captain of the Calgary Flames (probably).

We'll get into the details of Giordano's remarkable career later this week. To complement that project, we have decided to give away some Hudson's gift certfiicates to the folks who can best capture Gio's skills and fiery character through the ancient art of photoshopping his head onto movie characters and the like.

First prize this time around will be $150 in Hudson's GCs*. Second prize is $100 and third prize is $50. Like the recent contributor contest and the Staios! Is! Available! photoshop deal, winners will be determined through a mix of voting and my own discretion. Originality, humor, quality of work will all be considered.

I will add that I will only accept one contest entry per person this time around. Feel free to make more than one if so inclined, but make sure to desginate which is the official entry for the contest which is just celebrating Gio for the sake of it.

The contest will conclude a week from now on Monday, August 29th. Send your entries to me at kent.wilson@gmail.com.

*Hudson's prizes are only valid at the two Calgary locations I'm afraid.

i will submit, unphotoshopped, this for myself; it's a take on the classic tongue-out gio (with magical facial hair). i know this isn't what you're going for, exactly, but i think it's kindof perfect sans photoshopping...